GamerNode: Columns - The Ups and Downs of the 8-Bit RPG, Part One: Ultima

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Here's a list of other games that I have played with this same/similar shitty format:

Wizardry I and II
Phantasy Star
Swords and Serpents

Enjoy torturing yourself.....

Its pretty sad that this style of navigating made it into so many games and it certainly did nothing to the overall standing of RPGs. In both Wizardry and Swords and Serpents, the entire game is based on this ghetto-ass, first-person, explore-the-cave-blindly-at-the-risk-of-losing-everything style. BOO!

The process of improving your characters in Ultima was one of inconvenience. Unlike most RPGs, which operate on an experience-based system, your characters' attributes were improved by spending money at stat-specific shrines. For 100 gold you got one point towards whatever attribute that shrine was associated with (e.g. Wisdom shrine gave you wisdom). It was kind of cool the first time I got all the spells, but other than that, getting stronger took so much money and time I usually gave up before I ever maxed out even one character.

To top off the annoyingness, the best armor and weapon in the game are hidden. If you even discover where the sword and armor are buried via the awesome hints that you have received you still need to recover the corresponding pick to dig up the item. I think I found the picks, but had no clue where to dig.

So what was good about this game?

While I was writing this article I decided to give Ultima III: Exodus another whirl around the block for old time's sake. It only took me about 30 minutes to feel like I was wasting my time, losing big in the replayability score. Due to my rather brief enjoyment of the game, I began to wonder why I ever continued to play it in the first place. Now the obvious answer is that I had no choice! I played Ultima because I was not going to get a new game any time soon. But what made the game good? I think the best way for me to answer this is that Ultima was better as a game in my imagination than it was in reality. Ultima was awesome because it had so much potential with the character system and quite possibly layed the groundwork for later games like Final Fantasy Tactics. However, the potential was never met because the attribute system was much too simplistic. There just was not enough to work with to significantly differentiate all the characters. I mean seriously, what the hell was the point of the alchemist, thief, illusionist, and barbarian? The ideas were there and the combination of a big world, lots of caves, lots of towns, lots of characters, a decent amount of weapons and armor, puzzles, and somewhat of a story (more so if you bought the strategy guide) could have made for a great game but too much of it fell short in terms of substance.

So here's my arbitrary rating scale for Old Skool RPGs:

Story: D (Unless you get the strategy guide and read it; then its more like a B.)

Fighting system: D (If you make an input mistake, too bad, you lose your turn.)

Magic variety: D (Lots of useless spells or spells that are too similar. The cleric has two attack spells and two healing spells and lots of garbage in between.)

Character choices: B (I already talked about my complaints.)

Attribute system: C (I like the idea of the race combination with the jobs, but four attributes doesn't cut it. I'm not even sure if DEX matters at all other than opening treasure which you can open with magic from the beginning.)

Potential impact for future games: A (The ideas were there; the execution, not so much.)

Marketing and availability: F (Like I said, I saw this game mentioned once in Nintendo Power and it was impossible to find for purchase.)

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